While a small contingent is crying sour grapes over the 2010 Wine Blogger’s Conference I see more of a collection of curious choices rather than barrel of bad bloggers. Like most things in life, you can’t please all the people all the time nor would you want to try. The conference is in the books and hundreds of posts are streaming in about the adventures of wine writers. Here is what I do know: The 2010 Wine Bloggers Conference was extremely well organized. I was very impressed with the attention to detail and seamless operation of the logistics. Walla […]

This post is from guest blogger Dustin Cann (@DustinCann on twitter) For me, summer brings to mind thoughts of time spent in the yard or around a pool with friends, grilling to hearts’ content and talking about all things impactful or ridiculous over the appropriate summer beverages. You’re well familiar the normal libations: Pinot Grigio, Sangria, Mojitos, Margaritas, and (alas) light beer. Nothing against any of these options, but I’m a little bored with them. Fortunately, I recently had a good friend give me a particularly great piece of advice: rediscover and fall in love with the storied Moscow Mule. There […]

Situated in the center of the state of Washington is a destination resort vineyard and winery that showcases 30 year old vines and views 900 feet above the Columbia River. Cave B Estate Winery is next to the Gorge Amphitheater 150 miles East of Seattle and 150 miles West of Spokane just off Interstate 90 in the little town of Quincy, WA. With 30 rooms, a spa, restaurant and award winning wine, Cave B makes for a perfect overnight trip, or resting stop on your journey to/from Seattle. Owners Vince and Carol Bryan have fulfilled their vision for the property […]

On June 25, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz announced that it will use a testing ground store dubbed “Olive Way” to experiment with several new concepts. With rampant growth halted, Starbucks is looking for ways to draw customers back to the store. One of the new concepts is to introduce wine and beer as part of its product offering. Is this a good idea? Will doing so completely change the culture of the store, or is it a brilliant move to capitalize on the distribution network to extend sales into the evening hours? I think it’s a great idea! In fact, […]

June ended pretty much the same way it began…a showcase of Washington Wine. On June 3rd hundreds of people tweeted thousands of times about Washington Wine for #WAWine. June 25-27 hundreds of people tweeted thousands of times about Washington Wine for the 2010 Wine Bloggers Conference. In the middle of the month we enjoyed more Washington Wine with Taste Washington in Spokane and Washington Rose with Paul Gregutt (Seattle Times columnist). Drowning in the flow of literally hundreds of wines (close guess would be 300), I managed to review and score 25 wines, get featured in a local magazine, announce […]